“The signal there indicates that it will be a major rainfall event,” Vagasky said. “But accurately point out where you are going to fall, you can’t do that.”
The overflow of flash floods in this area of Texas is nothing new. The state’s eight-inch rain “maybe the day ends in the Y,” said Matt Lanza, a Houston-certified digital meteorologist. He said it was a challenge to balance forecasts that usually show extreme rainfall with how to prepare the public adequately for these rare but severe storms.
“It’s hard to warn this – let public officials who don’t know the weather and are not watching it every day to understand how fast these things can change,” Lanza said. “In fact, the biggest gain is that you have to be on your guard whenever there’s a risk of heavy rain in Texas.”
Meteorologists say NWS Have done it When you get updated information, issue enough warnings. By Thursday afternoon, it had issued flood surveillance for the area and issued a flash flood warning at 1 a.m. Friday. The agency issued a flash flood emergency alarm at 4:30 a.m.
“Weather service is on the ball,” Vagasky said. “They are delivering the message.”
But, as local media KXAN first reported, it seems that the first flood warning was issued on Facebook from security officials to the public, hours after the NWS issued the warning.
“Obviously there is a breakdown between giving a warning and how people get it, and I think it really has to be talked about,” Lanza said.
Wired has reached out to Kerrville, Kerr County and Texas Emergency Management departments to comment on the KXAN report.
As part of President Donald Trump’s Department of Administration Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, NOAA’s cuts have made headlines this year, with good reason: The NWS has lost more than 500 employees since the beginning of the year, killing some offices overnight. It also cuts down on critical procedures and even satellites that help track extreme weather. Meteorologists have repeatedly said that these cuts will make forecasting extreme weather more difficult and that storms and increased rainfall can be fatal as climate change strengthens. But Vagasky and Lanza both say the forecast this week is solid.
“I really just want people to understand that San Antonio’s forecast office has done a great job,” Vagansky said. “They got the warning, but it was an extreme event. The six hours of rainfall rate is higher than the 1,000-year rainfall rate. That’s the equivalent of less than 0.1% chance of this happening in any year.”
Due to cuts to Manoa, some of the initial changes made at NOAA were the launch of weather balloons across the country or eliminated completely. However, balloons that did deploy this week—including those sent in Texas on Thursday, suggesting that the atmosphere is full and there is slow wind that challenges the possible extreme rainfall, which helps predict, which helps predict.
“The data helps,” Lanza said. “It could be worse, you know? If you don’t have that data, you’re blind.”
